Saturday, January 24, 2009

The story of two weekends

Here's the latest updates with me. Two weekends ago, Tiffany and I took advantage of the fact that we live in Miami and went to the beach. Friday night, we drove out to South Beach to sit in the dark and have cocktails on the beach, just because. We ended up staying a while and talking to this guy who was a tattoo artist with two cute dogs. It was relaxing, and nice.

Here's a view of South Beach at night, kinda pretty.

The next day was a perfect beach day, sunny, breezy, a few clouds, hot but not too hot. Perfect. So T and I went out to Crandon Park at Key Biscayne and chilled for a while. We lay in the sun until it got boring, then headed out to a sand bar to explore what was out there. We found these birds...

a blue heron...

and these cute little tree plant thingys.

I also witnessed a sting ray swim right by me, which freaked me out, but then he was kind of majestic and nice (and farther away) so I was okay with it. I wish I'd taken a picture of him, now. Oh well.

The next weekend was a long one, thanks to Martin Luther King Jr. having a dream. We didn't have kids at school on Friday so I decided to make the most of it and head to the Miami Science Museum. They were having a music exhibit--not amazing, but fun nonetheless. Mellie and Margarita went with me. I must say my favorite moment was the karaoke exhibit where you were supposed to sing in a microphone and the other person was supposed to manipulate the voice to make it sound like the person was singing in different areas (the shower, a sound booth, whatever). Anyway, so I'm busting out some "The Shoop Shoop Song" by Cher, and this kid and his mom came and started staring at me. It was hilarious.

So anyway, I snapped a pic of us rockin' out to some jams. We are nerds and awesome.

On Saturday, I headed to Boca for an art festival and dinner with Annie. Traffic was a nightmare, as per usual, so I got there a little later than expected but it was all good. Annie and I headed to the festival and walked around for a bit. She bought a print of a manatee picture. I bought nothing but took some cards. Some of the stuff I've seen before but it's always fun to walk around and hang out with artistic folks.

After, Annie had made a reservation for dinner at a new restaurant that had just opened. She had a gift card, which was a big incentive. It's called Zed 451. Apparently, there's one in Chicago and now one in Boca. Let me tell you, the place was expensive but SO worth it. It was a Brazilian style restaurant, where you get up and have salads and sides buffet style, and then chefs bring out the proteins on skewers and serve you small pieces. It. Was. Delicious. All of the ingredients were extremely fresh, and everything was made on site. My favorites included the squash soup, the spicey green been salad, and Moroccan chicken. This chicken was SO GOOD I can't even describe it to you. I'm not sure if I can ever feel about a man the way I felt about this chicken. It was love at first bite, for sure. A. Mazing.

That's not even mentioning dessert. Dessert was s'mores pie. Oh yes, I said it. S'mores PIE. Basically a graham cracker crust constructed in a cup, which was awesome because I don't generally enjoy crust and could completely avoid it. Win. The inside was filled with melted chocolate ganache, and on top of THAT, there were home made marshmallows that were fired and kind of crisp. Oh yeah. On one side of the plate was home made peanut butter icecream on top of bananas with peanut butter sauce. On the opposite side of the place was home made vanilla ice cream over strawberries. Basically, I saw the face of God when I ate that dessert. It was so worth every cent. Hands down, it was the best meal of my life. I need to start saving up to eat there again!

Then Monday, my lovely day off from school, I headed to Fairchild Tropical Gardens but not without complications. I got a speeding ticket on the way (um... yeah, I don't wanna talk about it) and then, once I got to the garden, my camera decided to die. I have no idea why, but it's totally dead. New batteries, old batteries, nothing helps. Hence the reason I have NO pictures from my beautiful excursion. It sucks, too, because the gardens were TOTALLY pictaresque and I could have taken some really pretty pictures there. You can see some of them on the website and that's about the best I can do.

It was still a great experience and I enjoyed myself, but it was kind of a crappy day otherwise. Boo.

In other news, our pool has finally opened up, just in time for the two coldest days Miami's seen in ages. Seriously, it was so "cold" that the kids at school had two dress down days so that they could "bundle up." It was kind of funny, I can't lie. I'm hoping to enjoy the pool soon, perhaps tomorrow. It's not that warm, and the water will certainly be on the chilly side, but it'll be worth a try.

Anyway, I'm gonna go walk Bubba and enjoy some sunshine. Chances are I'll be writing less because I won't have pictures to post until I can buy a new camera... which will be a while considering I just spend $800 at the vet and have to now pay a speeding ticket. Um... sweet.

Much love.

Tuesday, January 06, 2009

Good bye, 2008! Hellooooo 2009!

Happy new year, every one! I rang in the new year at my sister's restaurant this year with the BF. No complaints, especially since the singer of the band that was playing quoted me! It was awesome. See, the countdown with good old Dick Clark was on, and the Jonas Brothers were playing. I go, "Are they even allowed to be up this late?" And the singer totally quoted it because I am hilarious. Shouldn't he pay me for that or something?! It was pretty awesome, I can't lie.

After midnight, "Johnny B. Goode" came on in the bar and I couldn't help myself...

I got home before my parents. Over all, a good NYE.

Other than that, it was the usual holiday fare. Garcia side on Christmas Eve, Palo side on Christmas day. In fact, here's Grumpa, Mema, and I.

I also managed to get some Coot time, which was a feat all its own since he was only in town for about 24 hours between NC and California. I wish I'd seen more people, but the holidays are such a busy time for everyone it just gets hard. I'm very happy and greatful, though, to the people who did come see me, or who took the time to make plans to meet up. It means a great deal to me to see people I love, especially since I live so far away.

I made it to GR for a little bit with my mom and dad. That evening, we went to Frederick Meijer Gardens because they were having a Christmas exhibit, trees and decorations from all over the world. It was mostly inside stuff, but they decorated outside as well. It was really lovely, and I loved that everything was still blooming. I so wish I could grow plants and flowers but I can't. *sigh* Anyway, here's a picture of The American Horse, decorated for Christmas.

My favorite game was guessing where each tree was from without looking. This was the Korean tree. I got it right, of course! In the arid room, there was a model train with models of GR landmarks. It was pretty cool!

My favorite part of the exhibit was the art of this guy, Jaume Plensa. He had this piece called "Jerusalem" that was a series of huge gongs with verses from Psalms carved on them, along with a giant mallet to hit the gongs with. Then he had all these statues constructed from letters... just really, really cool stuff. I don't get most art, but I kind of got his stuff. I dug it.

Other than that, I mostly just watched movies. I ended up seeing Australia (three hours of Hugh Jackman is KEY), Four Christmases (funny, even my dad liked it), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (beautiful, perfect, poignant), Twilight (again, don't judge), Burn After Reading (quirky, funny, LOVE me some Frances McDormand), Bella (hot Mexican actor/models are lovely), Cadillac Records (mmm Adrien Brody), Wall-e (so prophetic I loved it), Wanted (Why does James McAvoy bother with a shirt?), Milk (inspirational), The Jane Austin Book Club (I've been in PLENTY of elevators and NEVER met Hugh Dancy), X-Files: I Want to Belive (TOTALLY messed up and angsty... great), Marley and Me (A scene was filmed at Monty's! Awesome!), Fred Claus (I heart Vince Vaughn and it was better than I thought), Chronicles or Narnia: Prince Caspian (not like I remembered the book but good... violent for a kids' movie, though), and Ironman (Robert Downey Jr. is HOT. Seriously. Rehab WINS.). I feel like that embarassingly long list is incomplete, but whatever. I had a lot of time on my hands, okay?

I managed to make it to Splash and have them take care of my nose stud (I got a new one and had it... installed) which was key. I also had a hair cut and color... It's now green! Woot! I love it but I'm kind of keeping it on the DL at work for now. Not sure how the nun will handle it, although it's not against any policy I can find. I totally looked. One of my students thinks it's, and I quote, "Bad ass." What can I say? I'm a bad ass English teacher.

As. If.

My mom also had a brunch, where I learned this kid from high school is now back at the high school teaching A.P. English. I didn't even know dude could READ and he's teaching A.P.? I kinda feel bad about myself, but then I realize I don't really want to be teaching in Holt. I'm happy I've gotten out of there, at least for now. So yeah... the brunch was a nice way to catch up with some folks and eat some more Christmas food. Which is ALWAYS okay.

For more of my holiday photos, click on the Facebook album here.

And as a finaly holiday note, this is our tree here in Miami. This may be my Christmas card next year!
I actually arrived back in MIA 40 minutes early, and got everything (and I do mean everything) unpacked on Sunday. It was really a first for me. I have also organized my closet and cleaned up some of the clutter in my room. I'm starting 2009 with a clean slate and a clean room! I'm kind of glad to be back in Miami, back to a familiar niche I've created. I feel excited about what this city may hold for me in 2009, and I'm trying to change my attitude about it.

Maybe my green hair has given me new attitude.

Much love.

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